Austria will reduce the validity of covidpas to six months from February – SME.sk

VIENNA. Austria took new anti-pandemic measures to halt the spread of the disease at an extraordinary meeting of the government, federal representatives and experts of the Covenant Crisis Coordination Team (GECKO) on Thursday. coronavirus caused by the variant omicron.

The APA news agency and the Austrian media reported on it.

Shops will be required to check covidpas

After the new one will be in Austria It is mandatory to wear an FFP2 respirator outdoors as well, if it will not be possible to maintain two-meter spacings (for example, in pedestrian zones, in rows or at meetings of larger groups of people).

From 8 January, the duration of the quarantine will be reduced to five days, and it will be possible to end it on the basis of a negative test result. The validity of the green covidpas is reduced to six months from 1 February.

From next week, compliance with the so-called rule 2G, ie proof of vaccination or cure of COVID-19.

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For the first time, shops are obliged to check covidpas. The goal is to help enforce a still valid lockdown for the unvaccinated. The government in Vienna wants to prevent a possible further nationwide closure of the country.

The distinction between the categories of first and second contact persons is also abolished. People vaccinated with the third dose will no longer be considered as contact persons infected vaccines, nor people who overcame covid and received two doses of vaccine.

The same is true if all participants wore FFP2 respirators and also for children who are not yet receiving a booster dose of the anti-cancer vaccine in Austria.

The intensity of the fifth wave is accelerating

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the situation was “very serious” and “the virus is ubiquitous and dangerous because it is constantly changing.”

Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein reminded that the omicron variant is much more contagious, but patients with this variant seem to have a milder course of the disease.

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While in the variant delta one in four infected required intensive care, in omikron it is only one in ten infected.

However, he warned that this could lead to many people becoming infected at the same time, which could jeopardize critical infrastructure. In Austria, there are about 15,000 new cases a day next week.

The intensity of the fifth wave of the pandemic is clearly accelerating in Austria – while nearly 10,000 new cases were reported in the previous 24 hours on Wednesday, 8853 more were added by Thursday.

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